The inclusion of larger grains introduces additional control parameters which can potentially alter these phase boundaries. For simple `hard' grains interacting solely through their excluded volume, their influence will be set by the filler concentration and the size ratio \(r_L/r_S\)  between the large (\(L\) ) grains and the smaller (\(S\) ) colloids. These granular inclusions reduce the free volume available to the colloids relative to the total volume, but the interplay between the inclusions and gel structure is non-trivial, as colloidal gels can be heterogeneous on length scales \(\gg r_S\)  [1]}, [2]}, [3]}.
